


A Friend in Need

by Raaj



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 04:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8313403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raaj/pseuds/Raaj
Summary: Ringabel may act the most ridiculously of the group, but Tiz knows he gets lonely, same as any of them, and tries to give what comfort he can.





	

“Tiiiiiz,” Ringabel groaned. “Stay with me.”  
  
“Are you feeling sick?” Tiz asked cautiously, hovering by the older man’s bed. Ringabel had obviously had too much to drink, from the way he’d stumbled on their way back from the neon-lit bar. If he was sick, he might really need someone by his side–on his way to the toilet, that is.  
  
But Ringabel shook his head. “No, not sick… _lonely_.” With the amount of misery in his voice, he sounded genuinely close to tears. Tiz slowly sat down on the edge of the bed with him. Though the younger boy sighed in a little exasperation when he continued: “I don’t understand what I did wrong.”  
  
“I wasn’t on your date, Ringabel. I can’t tell you either.” The dryness had fully crept into Tiz’s voice; this had to be the fifth or sixth time Ringabel had bemoaned his ignorance on the matter since Tiz had retrieved him from the bar. The words came to his tongue to say while he didn’t know, perhaps he could guess from the man’s usual behavior around women; those he quickly shoved to the back of his thoughts. That wouldn’t be kind or right, no matter how frayed his patience might be at the moment. It really did seem like the date had gone far worse than any before; Ringabel drank on occasion, but this was the first Tiz had seen him well and truly drunk, lacking his usual confidence.  
  
And… maybe the ‘lonely’ comment had struck a bit. All of them were lonely, in a way. They had each other, but little else. He had lost everything at the Great Chasm. Agnès, too, had lost nearly everyone she knew when the Wind Crystal darkened. Edea had willingly abandoned her country and comrades for what was right. And Ringabel didn’t even know what he had lost. Maybe all the skirt-chasing was his way of seeking out company. Tiz didn’t really think it was the  _right_ way to go about alleviating loneliness, but it wasn’t like he knew a certain way, either.  
  
Ringabel sniffled into the comforter. “Come on my next one.”  
  
His next– “ _What?_ ” Tiz looked down at the demolished pompadour, certain he had misunderstood.  
  
“Be my wingman. My chaperone. My…” He waved a hand, giving up on verbal description.  
  
“…You’re drunk, Ringabel,” Tiz informed him, giving his head a light pat. If Ringabel still remembered that very, _very_ vague idea when he sobered up, he’d probably laugh. As though Tiz could help him woo ladies? He still got nervous at times in Florem, when it seemed like a lot of the girls were looking at him, even though he knew they were really looking at Ringabel and he just happened to be in the way.  
  
Ringabel made a funny little noise, pushing his head toward Tiz’s fingers. After a few seconds’ hesitation, Tiz patted his head again, absently adding a curl of the fingers that had his blunt nails lightly scratching the scalp under Ringabel’s meticulously kept hair.  
  
“Keep doing that, please?” It was a drowsy request, backed by Ringabel curling even closer; any closer, and his head would have to be in Tiz’s lap. “You have wonderful hands…”  
  
Tiz sighed. “Drunk,” he repeated, but kept scratching lightly. The motion was soothing. It wasn’t all that different from petting a big, silly dog, and if it lulled the older man to sleep sooner, so much the better. He needed as much sleep as he could get to deal with the hangover he would likely have in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> previously published on tumblr as "Petting". Originally I thought it was going to be some sort of series, but...the follow up never happened.


End file.
